To be effective in Operations, whether they be
Manufacturing, Services (hospitals, grocery stores), Administration
(offices), and even Government (!), you must ensure a minimum of disruption
in your processes and this means reducing variability in both Demand and
Supply. You must control your arrival variability (scheduling) and your
service variability (the time you take to execute your process)
This presentation will define variability, explain how it is caused, and
describe how it affects flow. The relationship of Variability to Throughput
on the one hand and to Capacity utilization on the other hand will be
established. Common forms of scheduling and execution variability will be
covered. Finally, practical techniques to control or eliminate variability
will be presented, covering Manufacturing and Services.
Please come with a pad and pencil as a few exercises will be conducted to
illustrate variability
Blair R Williams CFPIM, Jonah, CSCP
Blair is a Chartered Engineer (C.Eng.) from London and has a MBA from
Loyola University of Chicago. He worked as Manufacturing superintendent for
Pullman Standard out of Chicago and Indiana and as Director of Materials for
Worthington Pump in Harrison N.J, and Lightolier in NJ. From Sept. ‘90 to
Oct. ’98 he was Director of Supply Chain Management, Systems and
Manufacturing Engineering at AT&T’s Submarine System’s factory in Clark, NJ.
He is currently an Industry Professor of Manuf and Indus Engg. at Brooklyn
Polytechnic University.
He is an active member of APICS, and is recognized as a CFPIM and a CSCP. He
currently serves on the DSP curriculum and certification board. Prior to
this he served on the SMR and MPR C&C board from 1991 to 2004. He has
presented numerous papers at National and International conferences,
including South Africa in 1997 and 1998, Cork, Ireland in 1999 San Antonio
in 2001, Australia and Nashville in 2002, Las Vegas in 2003 and Delhi, India
in 2006. He is currently VP Marketing and Sales and Past President of the
Princeton Southern Jersey Chapter of NJ
He has published ‘Manufacturing for Survival’ - The How-to Guide for
Practitioners and Managers ISBN 0201633736.
